


No Monsters Here

by sailorstkwrning



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2430464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailorstkwrning/pseuds/sailorstkwrning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonny has a bad dream; Patrick soothes him. Then he feels bad about needing to be soothed, and Patrick fixes that, too. </p><p>Graphic depictions of violence are all dream-related and only mentioned in passing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Monsters Here

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Sinsense, who was an alpha reader, and Egelantier, who read it despite (still) Not Being In This Fandom. Any remaining mistakes or ridiculousness are 100% my fault.
> 
> 100% fiction. If you got here by Googling yourself or someone you know: HIT THE BACK BUTTON NOW.

Jonny wakes up and falls out of bed more or at less at the same time, his pulse racing. He gets up unsteadily, wobbly and not quite awake, not sure where he is, or if he had really lost his team in a series of caverns beneath the Field Museum. If he had really just watched Patrick get sliced apart by an alligator-wolverine cross that had fallen on their heads with no warning.

He fumbles the light on and looks at his hands - clean, all fingers present, no _blood_ \- then sits on the side of the bed for a minute, pressing his fingertips against his eyes, taking deep breaths and tells himself it was just a dream. It doesn’t help much. He’s on his way to the bathroom for a glass of water when he notices the connecting door to Patrick’s room is still open. 

He means to be quick- duck in, make sure Patrick was intact and still breathing, duck out - but Patrick wakes up while Jonny is feeling for his pulse.

"What,” Patrick mutters, slapping Jonny’s hands away from his neck and coughing a little. 

“Sorry,” Jonny says, trying to get his voice steady. “You were dead. The monster -”

“Am not,” Patrick says, frowning and rolling back at the same time, opening his eyes a fraction. Jonny is really glad that even with the light spilling in from his room it’s (probably) too dark for Patrick to see him properly. “What monster?”

“The one in my dream - it fell on you, from the ceiling,” Jonny says, hoping he doesn’t sound as frightened and about to cry to Patrick as he does to himself. 

This would be one of those times that his alleged monotone would come in really handy.

“Was it a big monster?” Patrick asks, opening his eyes further and tilting his head back to look at the ceiling, his hands moving on the bedclothes. 

Jonny sits down on the edge of the bed, presses the heels of his hand against his eyes and swallows carefully.

“Yes,” Jonny said. “Lots of teeth. Big claws. It bit you in half and ate you.”

“I bet I gave the fucker a stomachache,” Patrick says, sounding vaguely pleased. 

Jonny tries laughing but doesn’t quite get there. There had been a _lot_ of blood.

“Jonny,” Patrick says. “C’mere.” He grabs at Jonny’s elbow and tugs until Jonny tips over.

They both grunt when he lands on Patrick. Jonny lies still for a moment while Patrick pats his back, soothed by the attention but mortified by the reason for it, and gives himself a lecture about acting like an adult, like a _captain_ , starting with going back to his own bed to be rattled in private. 

“Okay,” Jonny says, when Patrick’s hands go still, and tries to get up.

Patrick makes a huffy noise and yanks him back down. Jonny sighs but stops fighting, because if he’s learned anything in last several years, it’s that there is a time and place to pick a fight with Patrick, and going by past experience, now - 3 AM in a Nashville hotel room - is not one of those times or places.

Instead he settles down, doing his best to make himself small. He ends up with one of Patrick's legs between his bent knees and his head on Patrick's shoulder and Patrick's arms around him. He feels warm and safe and protected, and very, very tired. Part of him is still determined to get up and leave as soon as Patrick goes back to sleep, but the rest of him knows that is a lost cause.

“Relax, Jonny,” Patrick mumbles, tugging the covers up over them. “‘It’s all right, I’ve got you, you’re okay. Just a dream. No monsters here.”

Jonny huffs an acknowledgment - no, all they have here is one grown-ass man acting like a child - and spends a few minutes trying to resist the effect of Patrick’s steady breathing before giving in to sleep.

**

Jonny wakes up to Patrick poking him with one hand and offering (crappy, in-room coffee maker) coffee with the other. He is still in Patrick's bed. He sits up and took the coffee, bracing himself to be rightfully, epically chirped, but Patrick just heads off to the shower.

Jonny stares at his retreating back for a while, then finishes his coffee and goes back to his own room to get ready. He’ll apologize later, once he’s more awake.

**

Morning skate goes - well, it goes, that’s the best Jonny can say. They’re all a little slow, and Patrick is not the only one yawning into his gloves. Halfway through he overhears Sharpy razzing Patrick about needing his beauty sleep and his stomach drops. 

But all Patrick does is flip Sharpy double birds and skate off to steal a puck from Duncs.

As soon as they got back to the hotel Jonny ducks into the Starbucks in the lobby and snaggs a small decaf frappucino for himself and a giant hot chocolate and whip cream for Patrick.

When he gets upstairs, the door between their rooms is open again. Patrick is in his own room, on his bed, dressed for his nap but deep in his book. Jonny clears his throat to get his attention and Patrick looks at him.

“Sorry,” Jonny says, approaching the bed and holding out the cup of diet-ruining contrition.

“For what?” Patrick asks with an expression of genuine puzzlement, and takes the cup.

“Waking you up last night,” Jonny says.

Patrick pauses in the act of taking the lid off to get at the whip cream to look at Jonny, gleeful anticipation of sugar visibly fading to something else, that Jonny can’t quite read.

“Won’t happen again,” Jonny says, because it _won’t_ , and took a drink of his frappucino.

Patrick’s gaze narrows briefly, and then he shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, dude. Thanks for the hot chocolate, though.”

Jonny nods and leaves, grateful for the reprieve, even though he’s pretty sure it’s temporary.

**

The game is much better. They win, 4-2, and that night Jonny sleeps the sleep of the triumphant and victorious and mostly dreams about ambulatory carrots. It’s a little weird but there’s no blood or death and he can blame it on the article about under-sink composting that he read before he crashed. 

**

Jonny spends a few days waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Patrick’s apparent resolve to crack under the weight of such perfect material and a reference to monsters or nightmares or _something_ to get thrown at him, but they have several Call of Duty sessions, a couple of BHTV events (one at the actual Field Museum) and three flaming rows and it never comes up. Jonny mostly forgets about it.

Mostly.

By which he means every time Jonny comes home at the end of a long day he remembers how warm and comfortable Patrick was to sleep next to, and how soothing his heartbeat was under Jonny’s ear. Then he wraps himself tightly in his blankets and puts on soothing waterfall noises and willfully does not think about it any further.

**

Then they go Ottawa. Jonny doesn’t get any rest on the bus or the plane by the time they get there he’s tired and cranky and a little snuffly from all the recycled air. He gets through team dinner basically by force of will. When he gets up to his room, the wind is blowing so hard the hotel windows are rattling, the sheets are cold, the blankets are scratchy and he kind of wants to set everything on fire, because at least that way he'd be miserable and _warm_. He opens the door between his and Patrick’s room largely out of habit. 

Naturally, as soon as Jonny lies down to sleep, he can’t. He spends twenty minutes fruitlessly fussing with his blankets and pillows before he turns the TV on and settles on the first documentary that comes up - a Halloween special on haunted houses, as it turns out - in an attempt to distract himself / bore himself to sleep. It doesn’t work. He’s sitting up, propped against his pillows, considering doing a second round of his nightly workout when Patrick walks through the open door, wearing his pajamas and carrying two cups of tea.

“Chamomile, no caffeine,” Patrick says, handing him one cup and sitting on the bed. “There’s honey in yours, for your throat. And your mood.”

Jonny glances at him, pleased, startled, and stung in equal measure. Patrick arches one eyebrow at him and Jonny sighs. He’d been trying not to spread the grumpy over the rest of the team, but evidently that hadn’t worked.

“Sorry,” Jonny says, rubbing at his eyes. “Just tired.”

Patrick makes a low noise, sits back on the bed and crosses his legs at the ankle. They drink their tea. 

“You’ve been quiet all week, “ Patrick says, just as the lady on the tv starts talking about the Amityville Horror house.

“What?” Jonny says, because he feels like he spends all day talking. Part of the reason his throat is sore is he spent half of dinner discussing the merits of heirloom tomatoes with Hammer and Bicks and almost forgot to drink any water.

“Oh fuck, Amityville, that shit gives me nightmares,” Patrick says, briefly distracted, and grabs the remote away before Jonny can stop him. “Vampires and werewolves, ok, actual demons, no thank you.”

“I’m fine,” Jonny says, while Patrick flips through the channels, finally settling on something that might involve housewives. “I’ve been fine.”

“You have not,” Patrick says, flat and certain.

Jonny drinks his tea and wonders if, in defiance of all previous experience, Patrick will let it go if he doesn’t respond.

“What is it, Jonny,” Patrick says, his tone much softer. 

“Nothing,” Jonny says, because Patrick is his best friend, chief irritant and most trusted sounding board and there is no way in the world he’s going to fuck that up by dropping a _I kind of want to snuggle with you when I’m tired_ bomb on it. 

“The power play is - well, it’s getting better,” Patrick says a few minutes later, almost to himself. “You’ve been scoring, I’ve been scoring. The team has been healthy -” he paused to knock on the bedside table - “and the rookies haven’t done anything dumb that I know of - ”

Jonny steals the remote back and switches the channel back to the haunted houses, where they have moved on to a hotel in New Hampshire somewhere. There are no demons in evidence, so Jonny thinks maybe it’s okay now.

“Fuck you, I told you this shit gives me - “ Patrick began, yanking the remote back, then pauses, mutes the tv, and gives Jonny a narrow look. “Hold on. Is that it? Are you cranky because you can’t sleep because of bad dreams?”

“No,” Jonny huffs, drinking more tea. It’s warm and sweet and just enough to smooth off the rough edges of his day. “I only had that one.”

Patrick hums into his tea. Jonny steals the remote from him and clicks around until he finds a nature documentary that doesn’t seem to involve too many dead animals. 

“Everyone has nightmares, Jonny,” Patrick says, as Jonny unmutes the tv. “I had one about playing the All Star Game naked last week. Kesler checked me into the boards and I thought I broke my dick, it was awful.”

Jonny almost chokes on his tea. Patrick thumps his back a couple of times, which Jonny uses as an excuse to flop over and wriggle closer. Patrick settles a hand on his back and starts scratching. Jonny exhales slowly and closes his eyes. He might regret doing this later, but for now it feels good. After a minute fingers brush against his other hand, and his cup of tea disappears. 

“I’ve had some with monsters, too,” Patrick continues, just loud enough to be heard over the dude on tv talking about koalas. “One where the UC was full of ice snakes and they kept biting us.”

“Ice snakes?” Jonny repeats, as Patrick’s fingers drift towards his neck.

“Ice snakes,” Patrick confirms. “They kept jumping out of our lockers and sinking their fangs into our eyeballs.”

“Ugh,” Jonny says, shivering in sympathy.

“It was gross,” Patrick says, sounding thoughtful. “And scary. We were in Calgary and I had to turn the light on and watch you frown in your sleep for like ten minutes, after that one.”

Jonny opens his eyes and turns to look at Patrick, wondering if this is the mockery he’s been waiting for, but Patrick’s expression is rueful and sincere, with no trace of a smirk.

“What?” Patrick says. “I did.”

“I didn’t wake up?” Jonny says, settling back down, mildly surprised and vaguely guilty, because being alert to teammates in distress - well, he’d file it under his job, as the captain.

“No,” Patrick says, and switches from scratching Jonny’s back to petting him, his hand moving in broad, slow strokes.

“Oh,” Jonny says, mostly to his pillow, and curls a little closer. Patrick’s hand is warm and his touch is soothing Jonny in spite of himself.

“You’d already had a long day,” Patrick says, flipping his hand over and rubbing his knuckles over Jonny’s shoulders. “And I was fine, once I could see you had both of your eyes.”

“You can wake me up even if I’ve had a long day,” Jonny says, shifting to get a better look at Patrick’s face.

“I know,” Patrick says, smiling a little, his hand stilling on Jonny’s shoulder. “And you can wake me up any time, too.”

Jonny flinches, at that, and looks away. 

“Stop being a dumbass,” Patrick says, but there’s no heat to it. “We all need a little extra love sometimes, and that includes you, Captain Stoic.”

Jonny huffs and hides his face in pillow. 

“I mean it,” Patrick says, leaning forward and squeezing Jonny’s shoulder. “Just think of it as - a vitamin. Or, like, balancing your chakras, or whatever.”

Jonny looks up, but all he can see in Patrick’s face is concern and mulish determination.

“Okay,” Jonny says, and Patrick resettles against the headboard and resumes rubbing Jonny’s back, apparently satisfied.

Jonny closes his eyes and lies quiet for minute, then very carefully shifts so he’s more fully in Patrick’s lap. Patrick makes a pleased noise, and puts another hand on his back. Ten minutes later Jonny falls asleep while the lady on the TV is in the middle of a complicated story about sloths, and does not dream of anything in particular.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also [on Tumblr!](http://sailorstkwrning.tumblr.com/)


End file.
